Dr. Reid laid his back across his Dr. Who beach towel and stretched his arms out like a cross, letting out a soft, "Ahh…" as he prepared to let his bare chest soak up some much-needed Vitamin D – never mind the harmful UV rays. He heard Morgan chuckle beside him, the crashing waves and children's laughter a nice background to his friend's deep voice. "Man, you need to get out more. That pasty chest is blinding me, Kid." Reid smiled but kept his eyes closed. He didn't notice his colleague's demeanor change as Morgan realized he hadn't seen Reid's upper arms in years. He looked toward the water, no longer in the teasing mood.
Rossi's beach house had turned out to be a fantastic getaway for all of them and their immediate families. Will and Henry had tagged along with JJ; Jack had come as well – Hotch had even brought Beth, which everyone knew was a big step in their relationship. This was their first full day on vacation and their first visit to the beach. Right now, Reid and Morgan were playing lifeguard for Henry and Jack, who were splashing in the water. Hotch and Beth had gone back to get Jack's sunscreen, which they had forgotten, JJ and Garcia had meandered down the beach a bit to get cold drinks, and everyone else was who-knows-where, probably at the house.
For a few moments more, Reid let his body relax, feeling the soft, white sand on his bare arms, soaking up the warm sun on his skin, smelling the cool, ocean breeze, listening to the sound of Jack and Henry's playing. He was thankful that there weren't too many people on the beach today. This particular shore was a hidden treasure, he knew. Only an average of 1,872 people visited annually.
"Jack!" he heard Hotch call from far behind his head. "Come here! You don't want to get sunburned, do you?"
Jack followed his father's orders, crashing and splashing out of the sea, Henry not far behind his older friend. But while Jack raced out of hearing distance, Henry tip-toed closer to Reid and Morgan, placing a small, wet finger over his lips to signify that Morgan should stay quiet. Morgan grinned and signaled it back to him to show that he understood. Reid kept his eyes closed and his body relaxed as his godson crept closer to him.
He couldn't hold back the corner of his lip curling up when a shadow came over his eyes.
"BAH!"
Henry screamed, startled, and then laughed hysterically as his Uncle Spencer wrapped him in a hug. "I was gonna scare you!"
"I know! And I beat you to it!" As their giggles faded out, Henry made himself a place next to his godfather, Derek on his other side. For a moment, all was still as the three settled down after the attack. Reid didn't even notice Henry's childlike curiosity coming out until he felt a small finger poke the crook of his elbow.
"Hey, Uncle Spence, what are those dots on your arm?"
The question was so sudden, asked in such an innocent way that for a moment, Reid was taken aback. He'd grown so used to them in the past few years that he didn't think much of them anymore. It helped that they were doing a good job of fading. He assumed they'd only lasted so long because he only really had the one needle to be reused again and again. But that was long passed.
He glanced at Morgan who had his head turned slightly toward Reid but was still staring hard at the ocean as if he couldn't decide whether or not he wanted to openly listen.
"Um…" What could he tell this little boy? He couldn't lie to him, but he couldn't very well tell him the detailed truth, either. He decided the best way to explain it was to start specific and get broader with each question. Taking a deep breath, ready to dive right in, he said, "Those are tracks marks." He noticed Morgan's head lower by about a thirty-second of an inch.
Henry thought for a moment before looking up at Reid with those big, baby blues. "What are they tracking?"
He almost spit out, "How many times I've given blood," but that was just a straight-up lie and blood-donor spots don't last that long anyway. Another deep breath. "They track how many times I tried to run away." Morgan looked straight ahead now. Definitely avoiding eye-contact. Reid had never talked openly about it, though, aside from the meetings, so he was really rather grateful for Morgan's evasiveness.
"You tried to run away?" Henry seemed a little sad.
"Yeah. But not for a long time now." There was only the sound of the waves for a moment.
"Mommy says running away is like the same as giving up."
Reid nodded. "Your mom's a smart lady."
Again, there was a pause as Henry thought. "Why haven't you?"
"What?"
"Why haven't you tried running away for a long time?"
"Well…" Reid thought for a moment. Why did he quit? "Every time I ran away, I would leave a small piece of myself there on accident. Unfortunately, it always seemed to be the nice pieces. But eventually, Henry, when I stopped going to visit these nice pieces of myself, they started to miss me and came back."
Henry giggled, which was a bit unexpected. That was just a testament to how innocent he really was. "I'm glad they did." He grinned, showing off his tiny, white teeth.
Reid smiled. "Me, too, Henry." He looked at Morgan again and saw that he was smiling, too, just a little.
"Where did you go?" Henry asked.
"I'm sorry?"
"When you ran away, where did you go?" There was no end to this child's burning curiosity. He seemed to ask all the difficult questions, the ones Reid wasn't sure how to answer – something he wasn't used to at all. He usually had an answer for almost everything stored somewhere in his head.
"What are my little lovelies chatting about on this fine, summer morning?" Garcia asked as she sat down next to Morgan, clad in her multi-colored tankini. Ah, saved by the bell, sort of, Reid thought. She handed Morgan a sweating bottle of Coke before popping open a Mellow Yellow, and he took it gratefully.
JJ, sporting a bright blue bikini that brought out her eyes, motioned for Reid to scoot over to make room on his Dr. Who towel and passed him a Diet Coke. She opened Henry's carton of orange juice before taking a swig from her Sprite.
"Nothing much," Morgan answered.
"Are you guys having fun?" JJ asked.
"Yeah!" exclaimed Henry, and just like that, his attention was elsewhere.
Reid released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. His eyes met Morgan's for a moment, and a silent message passed between them – but only for a moment.
o.O.o.O.o
Reid still couldn't use chopsticks. Their ease of use, which seemed to come so simply to others, had evaded him for the whole of his life. He had just lost his 247th battle with the accursed "utensils," and he thanked the waitress as she handed him a fork, earning him a few chuckles from around the table.
The restaurant was only a ten-minute walk from the beach house, and from the little bit that Reid had been able to capture with his chopsticks, he found that the food was pretty dang good. The conversation was mundane but interesting enough that the whole table was engaged, which was a feat, considering the size of their party. Reid sat in between Henry and Garcia, JJ on Henry's other side. Dinner was moving along rather nicely, fairly uneventful and pleasant until there was a pause in the conversation that Henry found to be the most opportune time to speak his mind.
"Mommy, can I have track marks like Uncle Spencer?"
The whole table stopped moving. Mouths stopped in mid-chew. Forks halted halfway to mouths. Eyes went wide. The only sound was Reid choking on his fork-fed Lo Mein noodles. Garcia smacked his back until he could breathe again.
"I-I'm sorry, what?" JJ asked her son.
"Uncle Spencer has track marks! I want some, too! They're cool!"
"Uh…" Reid stuttered.
"Track marks, as in…" JJ glanced at Spencer.
"Track marks!" Henry told his mother, growing frustrated at her seeming incompetence. "You know, the dots on his arm!"
"Henry," Reid warned quietly after finding his voice. "I told you that they track how many times I tried to run away. Why would you want to run away?"
"But you have them. I want some, too."
"But I had to leave the nice pieces of myself behind to get them. Henry, the only me left was mean and angry. Do you really want to hurt the people you love like your mom and make her feel bad, or me, or Aunt Penelope? Do you want to make us unhappy?"
"No," he answered, ashamed.
"That's good, Henry. I'm not proud of these marks, but they remind of the places that I never want to go again. Is that good chicken?"
He looked up. "Huh?"
"Your chicken. Is it good?"
"Oh, yeah! Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, delicioso!" he exclaimed, quoting Dora.
Reid looked up at JJ and mouthed, "I am so sorry!"
She seemed a little stunned but shook her head. "No… that's okay. You handled it much better than I could have."
As the table slowly came back to life, Reid realized that although his drug problem had been pretty much understood throughout the team for a long time now, it was now completely out in the open, not only among his team but their families as well. Surprisingly to Reid, though, he was kind of okay with that. Since he and everyone else knew that he was never, ever going back there, he had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
A/N: Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! :)